By Iris Cushing
I’ve been re-reading Edward Said’s Representations of the Intellectual, and considering how Said’s notions of the public role that intellectuals play applies to my work as an educator. Specifically, how do I conceive of the students who I work with in the writing center as public intellectuals? It’s relatively easy for me to think of myself (as a teacher who works in public universities, and a published writer) as a public intellectual of a sort; but what about the students I encounter, whose intellectual commitments are wildly diverse and diverge from mine in significant ways? How can my understanding of the public stakes of students’ writing and literacy practices help me better serve my students?
In the introduction to his book, Said writes that “There is no such thing as a private intellectual, since the moment you put down words on paper and publish them you have entered the public world.”[i] I am interested in extending this notion to student writing, with the process of submitting writing to instructors or potential employers as a form of “publication.” While many students probably don’t think of the writing they do as meant for publication, they are composing their writing with some kind of public reader in mind—be it their professor, the class they will deliver a speech to, or an admissions committee at a graduate program. In many cases, college is probably the first place where students experience the adult consequences of their writing, consequences that are translated into intellectual growth, not to mention grades and professional opportunities. They find out firsthand that their words literally represent them. I would like the knowledge of this fact to be something that undergirds my interactions with students.
Said goes on to say, “Nor is there only a public intellectual . . . there is always the personal inflection and the private sensibility, and those give meaning to what is being said or written.”[ii] I agree with Said on this point; I think that recognizing the presence of the personal and the inimitable in student writing is some of the most important work that I do as an educator. The presence of the “private sensibility” emerges not only in what a student writes, but how she writes it, how she uses her language. (Gloria Anzaldua: “If you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language.”[iii]). As I acknowledge the public consequences of students’ writing, I aim to also honor what is singular about it—what makes it uniquely theirs—and call this quality to their attention. My most exciting practice as an educator these days is that of holding this dual awareness: that students are public writers, each with their own intensely personal stake in their writing.
Endnotes
[i] Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual: the 1993 Reith Lectures (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994), 12.
[ii] Said, Representations, 12.
[iii] Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands / La Frontera (Texas: Aunt Lute Books, 1999), 81.
Published on April 18, 2018
